The audio feed during the Supreme Court of India’s live-streaming of oral mentionings before Chief Justice of India Surya Kant was muted on Friday (July 25, 2026) .
The control room managing the live feed for the Chief Justice’s courtroom posted a message on the chat box informing viewers that “as per direction, audio stopped in Court 1”.
SC bars unauthorised recording, monetisation of court videos on social media While the video feed continued, the lack of audio prevented the public, the media, and lawyers from hearing the oral exchange between the Bench and lawyers’ mentioning their cases.
The CJI had recently said that mentioning was an “administrative” exercise rather than a judicial proceeding, and ought not to be reported.
Unique window Oral mentionings are a routine usually witnessed as soon as the court assembles for the day.
The lawyers are heard seeking urgent hearings, at times for safeguarding life, liberty, and other fundamental rights.
It is a unique window for lawyers and litigants to directly get the attention of the Chief Justice of India.
‘Don’t waste our time’: CJI Kant declines to take cognisance of police violence during CJP’s Parliament march The oral mentions are listed early, while others are done impromptu.
In each case, the CJI evaluates the urgency of the issue mentioned and decides whether or not to list the case early or not.
Recent days have seen sensitive issues being orally mentioned before the CJI, even before the filing of any petition or a formal hearing.
The oral exchanges between the top judge and mentioning lawyers or litigants are widely reported.
Videos of such instances had even gone viral on social media too.
One of them was an oral mentioning by an advocate, Narendra Mishra, who had sought the court’s intervention against the Delhi Police for its crackdown on protesters linked to the NEET-UG paper leak.
Mr.
Mishra had claimed that he had videos of the police action on the protesters.
The CJI had dismissed the lawyer’s claim with a remark, “not to waste our time and not waste your time.
We are not interested in videos and we don’t have time to watch…” The comment had triggered a furore.
